Throughout the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama and John McCain used sports to reach out to people across the country. Obama did an excellent job of connecting with people through sports, which may have helped him win the election.
From the beginning of his campaign, Obama discussed his love of sports. He played basketball in high school and began playing election day pick-up games during the Democratic primary campaign. He called sports radio shows and gave interviews to sports columnists. By Obama talking about sports and showing that he’s a big sports fan, people, like Arash Markazi, can relate to him and view him as a regular person.
Obama also used sports media to reach people, especially the Republican-leaning demographic group of young white males. According to Nielsen, Obama’s campaign spent more on sports programming than any candidate in history. During the Beijing Olympics alone, Obama’s campaign spent $5 million on commercials.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been over 7,000 “Obama for President” commercials during live sporting events. A 30-minute Obama infomercial delayed the final World Series game by a few minutes, and Nielsen estimated that 33.7% of infomercial viewers also watched the Phillies win the World Series.
Obama had one last chance to reach the American people on Monday Night Football, the night before the election. The game was the second most-watched cable event of the year. Obama was interviewed during halftime and talked about a college football playoff system, which is an issue in the world of sports.
Connecting with people through sports was a perfect campaign strategy for Obama. He capitalized on the opportunity to reach a wide-ranging group of people, but they all had one thing in common — sports.
I love that Obama used so many different tactics to reach people. My last blog post (www.thinkwritenow.wordpress.com) is about how Obama utilized social networking sites, especially Facebook, to help spread his message. I did not know about his use of sports. Reading your entry, it seems like he knew how to reach his target audience. I mean, talking during halftime on Monday Night Football, what a great idea. What better way to reach sports fans? I enjoyed your post, keep up the good work!
-Niki I.
I definitely think that Obama did a great job marketing himself in as many different media outlets as possible. Not only did he dominate McCain in his social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter), which reached young adults and students in ways McCain did not, but he also reached out to sports fans as well. Just this weekend my dad informed me of how “Barack is true baller” which then enticed me to YouTube videos of him playing 3-on-3, and hitting 6 out of 8 three pointers in front of American troops. I had no idea that he was a good athlete until this weekend. I’m glad that you blogged about yet another one of Obama’s strategic use of marketing and public relations. I think it’s great that he went on Monday Night Football to increase America’s awareness of his sports intellect and physical capabilities. Even though that is obviously not as important as our economic crisis, I think it’s important for him to reach out and relate to as many Americans as possible (especially those who doubt him, which could very well be the men who watch Monday Night Football).
Niki and Allison,
Thank you for the great comments!
Obama and his team definitely figured out what they needed to do to win the election. Like the two of you mentioned, Obama’s use of social media was amazing. He was all over Facebook! Reaching out to people in multiple ways, especially through social media and sports, was important to the success of Obama’s campaign.